He reached Philadelphia on May 5, 1775—an elderly widower, nearly seventy, grave and saddened by the loss of his wife, by the crisis to his country which his many years of negotiations could not forestall. Sally and Richard Bache took him to the house on Market Street which he had designed but never occupied. Two small grandchildren whom he had never seen, Benjamin and William Bache, were waiting to embrace him and to greet their youthful English cousin, Temple. Franklin’s friends of the Junto and political companions were on hand to give him the big news. On April 19, while he was on the high seas, that was when it had happened. General Sir William Howe (another brother of the chess-playing Miss Howe), who was now stationed in Boston, had sent some 800 British soldiers to Concord, where the Massachusetts Committee of Safety had a store of arms and ammunition. The Massachusetts Minutemen, forewarned by Paul Revere, had tried to stop them at Lexington. The Redcoats, who claimed that the colonials fired first, had killed eight and left ten wounded, then pushed onwards. It was at Concord where for the first time in America the King’s subjects shot at the King’s troops. The return of the Redcoats was a rout, with farmers and tradesmen firing behind every barn and haystack. General Howe announced 73 of his men slain and 174 wounded. A rebellion was under way and there was no turning back. On his second day home, Franklin was chosen as a Pennsylvania delegate to the Second Continental Congress. It opened on May 10 in the Philadelphia State House; delegates from all the colonies attended. In both years and experience, Franklin was the senior member. Colonel George Washington, a big quiet man of forty-three, wore his colonial uniform, as if guessing the heavy responsibility ahead of him as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Armies. On the day he left for Cambridge to assume his post, word came of the valiant fight at Breed Hill (which history would call the Battle of Bunker Hill). Another tall Virginian joined the Congress, red-haired Thomas Jefferson, thirty-two years old, lawyer and college graduate and of a wealthy and cultured family. In spite of differences in age and background, Franklin found him a kindred spirit. Jefferson, like himself, was a scientist, inventor, man of letters. In July, Congress voted to send another petition to their “gracious sovereign,” asking for a redress of grievances. Franklin knew in advance that this “olive branch” petition was a waste of paper, but he did not voice his objections. Let these impulsive young men of Congress find out for themselves that the weak and stubborn George III was not on their side. They would likely not have taken his word anyway. In sessions of Congress he spoke less than any man present. In his school days he had learned a jingle: “A man of words and not of deeds / Is like a garden full of weeds.” Better to show one’s patriotism in action than talk.